Seeking Comfort
by KricketWilliams
Summary: After a painful event, Morgan seeks understanding and comfort. Spoilers to "Lauren." As usual, I don't own anything.


_AN: I needed to write this, to allow time to grieve with our team..._

He was still angry.

That was the first emotion Derek Morgan had let himself feel after leaving the hospital. His gut had burned, and his throat had been raw with unshed tears. He had been angry at Doyle, angry at the doctors and nurses for not doing enough, angry at God, and most of all, angry at Prentiss.

_Damn _her! He still thought she should've said something to him, she should've let him help, she should've trusted him...like he had trusted her. Derek hated being duped; the whole thing stunk to high heaven and he couldn't figure it out yet.

He felt angry and guilty.

That followed right on the heels of how angry he had been, how angry he still was. He had doubted her, was the only one saying he didn't like how she had operated with Doyle. He had a hard time believing that the woman he had seen bomb cars was the same one that had protected children-had even wanted to adopt an orphaned teenager. He had been so angry, he hadn't understood why she did what she had done-her methods, not her motives.

And he wanted to understand. God, more than anything, he wanted to understand. He thought back to a time when Prentiss had sat with him on the plane, asking if she would turn into someone as bad as they hunted. He had assured her she wouldn't. Now, he didn't know what he would do, if he had been in her shoes. It made him question himself.

He felt angry and guilty and stupid.

He thought back to the signs over the past few days. Her warning him to lay off, not to profile her. He didn't know why he hadn't pushed. He'd been shot at, for Christ's sake, and he still hadn't pushed. She'd vomited at a scene, and he hadn't pushed. He should've known, he trusted his gut after all, he should've known something was wrong.

But he didn't. And she was dead.

He felt angry and guilty and stupid and sad.

Sitting next to Penelope while she had bawled in the hospital room, looking over at Reid, Rossi, and Hotch, he had felt like he had let them down. He had been so angry at Prentiss, had been lashing out, he thought that maybe he had missed something vital. He had known her-had thought he had known her-better than most of the rest of the team. He had been her partner;he had her back, as she had his.

Except when it most counted.

He had so many questions to ask her, things that would never be answered, and he had to live with that. He had put his life in her hands so many times, he couldn't put a number on it. He had to live with knowing that he had worked hand in hand with someone for the past three years, in the trenches of the most dangerous times, and he hadn't really known her.

She hadn't trusted him enough to let him know her.

A knock on the door stopped him from thinking anymore.

"Hot Stuff, are you ready?" Penelope's soft voice called out to him. She had been there, never leaving his side since it happened.

"Yeah, P," he said, opening the door of the quiet room at the church.

"It's about to start," she said, looking at him with her luminous blue eyes, so full of hurt.

Running a hand over his face, he stopped and said, "I don't think I can do this."

She frowned. "Do what?"

He took a few steps, then took a seat in a nearby pew. "I didn't know her, P. How can I be a pallbearer for someone I barely knew?"

Penelope took a seat next to him. "I think we all feel that way, just a bit. She was Emily...she was someone I loved and cared about; someone you loved and cared about, too, D. Someone I miss terribly." She paused for a second. "That's enough for me right now."

He shook his head. "It isn't that simple. She didn't let me in, didn't let me know, put us all in danger-"

"Tried to protect us," Pen interrupted, but gently.

"I was _shot at_, P!" he snapped vehemently. "If I had known, I could've done something, I could've...I...I should've known...I..."

His voice trailed off, as that anger left, and the guilt and the hurt and the helpless feeling of stupidity rolled over him again. That fucking rotten feeling that had plagued him since the first night after her death.

He felt angry and guilty and stupid and sad.

"There was nothing you could do, Derek. There is nothing any of us could have done. She wanted it that way," Pen replied.

He didn't say a word as he fixed his eyes straight ahead in the church.

Penelope sighed softly and stood. "Derek, I know you have a job to do and you will do it, like you always do. Today it is being her pallbearer. When you remember you are her friend, I'll be there for you, too."

Hours later, the funeral went off without a hitch, and he had done his job, like Penelope had said he would. When he stood by her graveside, after placing a rose on her casket, he felt tears sting the back of his nose, felt his throat constrict.

She was Emily. She was someone he had loved and cared about.

As he reached his hand out to clasp Penelope's, he realized...

That was enough for him right now.


End file.
